Janning: I wish to testify
about the Feldenstein case because it was the most significant trial of
the period. It is important not only for the tribunal to understand it,
but for the whole German people. But in order to understand it, one must
understand the period in which it happened.

There was a fever over the land, a
fever of disgrace, of indignity, of hunger. We had a democracy, yes,
but it was torn by elements within. Above all there was fear, fear of
today, fear of tomorrow, fear of our neighbors, and fear of ourselves.
Only when you understand that can you understand what Hitler meant to us,
because he said to us:

"Lift your heads. Be proud to be
German. There are devils among us, communists, liberals, Jews, gypsies.
Once these devils will be destroyed your misery will be destroyed."

It was the old, old story of the
sacrificial lamb.

What about those of us who knew better, we who knew the words were lies
and worse than lies?
Why did we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because we loved our country.
What difference does it make if a few political extremists lose their
rights? What difference does it make if a few racial minorities lose their
rights? It is only a passing phase. It is only a stage we are going
through. It will be discarded sooner or later. Hitler himself will be
discarded -- sooner or later. The country is in danger. We will
march out of the shadows! We will go forward. FORWARD is the great
password.

And history tells how well we
succeeded, Your Honor. We succeeded beyond out wildest dreams. The very
elements of hate and power about Hitler that mesmerized Germany,
mesmerized the world. We found ourselves with sudden powerful allies.
Things that had been denied to us as a democracy were open to us now. The
world said, "Go ahead. Take it. Take it! Take Sudetenland! Take the
Rhineland! Re-militarize it! Take all of Austria! Take it!"

And then, one day we looked around and
found that we were in an even more terrible danger. The ritual begun in
this courtroom swept over the land like a raging, roaring disease. What
was going to be a "passing phase" had become the way of life.

Your Honor, I was content to sit
silent during this trial. I was content to tend my roses. I was even
content to let counsel try to save my name, until I realized that in order
to save it, he would have to raise the specter again. You have seen him do
it. He has done it, here, in this courtroom. He has suggested that the
Third Reich worked for the benefit of people. He has suggested that we
sterilized men for the welfare of the country. He has suggested that
perhaps the old Jew did sleep with the 16 year old girl after all.
Once more, it is being done -- for love of country.

It is not easy to tell
the truth. But if there is to be any salvation for Germany, we who know our
guilt must admit it -- whatever the pain and humiliation.

I had reached my
verdict on the Feldenstein case before I ever came into the courtroom. I
would have found him guilty, whatever the evidence. It was not a trial at
all. It was a sacrificial ritual in which Feldenstein, the Jew, was the
helpless victim.

Hans Rolfe:
Your Honor, I must interrupt. The defendant is not aware of what he's
saying. He's not aware of the implications!

Janning: I am
aware. I am aware! My counsel would have you believe we were not aware of
the concentration camps. Not aware. Where were we? Where were we when
Hitler began shrieking his hate in Reichstag? Where were we when our neighbors
were being dragged out in the middle of the night to
Dachau?! Where were
we when every village in Germany has a railroad terminal where cattle cars were filled with children being carried out to their
extermination! Where were we when they cried out in the night to us.Deaf, dumb, blind!!

Hans Rolfe: Your Honor, I
must protest!

Janning: My counsel says we
were not aware of the extermination of the millions. He would give you the
excuse: We were only aware of the extermination of the hundreds. Does that
make us any the less guilty? Maybe we didn't know the details. But if we
didn't know, it was because we didn't want to know.

Emil Hahn: Traitor! Traitor!

Judge Haywood: Order! Order!
Order! Put that man [Hahn] back in his seat and keep him there.

Janning: I am going to tell
them the truth. I am going to tell them the truth if the whole world
conspires against it. I am going to tell them the truth about their
Ministry of Justice. Werner Lammpe, an old man who cries into his Bible
now, an old man who profited by the property expropriation of every man he
sent to a concentration camp. Friedrich Hofstetter, the "good German" who
knew how to take orders, who sent men before him to be sterilized like
so many digits. Emil Hahn, the decayed, corrupt bigot, obsessed by the
evil within himself. And Ernst Janning, worse than any of them because
he knew what they were, and he went along with them. Ernst Janning: Who
made his life excrement, because he walked with them.